The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the latest Northern Ireland setback, as seen by Unionist and Sinn Fein representatives; Kwame Holman reports on the Senate's move toward a final vote on patient rights legislation; political reporters Elizabeth Arnold, Ron Brownstein, and Susan Glasser count the big money in the 2000 presidential campaign; and Jeffrey Kaye looks at the art and life of Diego Rivera. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The Northern Ireland peace plan had a setback today. The major Protestant Party refused to join the new power-sharing government. The Ulster Unionists insist that the Irish Republican Army must disarm first. The IRA has resisted that so far. President Clinton commend on the apparent breakdown this afternoon at a White House gun control event.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: They are having a fight over who goes first, and acting today as if the whole thing could be abandoned over that. That cannot be allowed to happen. I do not believe it will be allowed to happen. I believe there is too much invested in this, and I believe that sooner, rather than later, we'll get this thing back on track.

JIM LEHRER: Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, said the key parties will meet next week to plan a thorough review of the Good Friday Peace Accord. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. The Senate moved toward a final vote tonight on patient rights. A Democratic provision allowing patients to sue their health maintenance organizations was defeated. Republicans said it would have increased costs. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. Present Clinton welcomed Israel's new leader to the White House today. It was Prime Minister Barak's first official visit of the United States. Barak said he wants to get the peace process with the Palestinians back on track. He will be meeting with other senior American officials during a five-day visit. In Kosovo today, moderate ethnic Albanian Leader Ibrahim Rugova returned after two months of exile in Italy. He left during NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia. Rugova was twice elected president in unsanctioned elections before the conflict. Thousands of Kosovars cheered as his convoy made its way from the Macedonian border to the capital of Pristina. Rugova said he was ready to work for democracy in Kosovo. China said today it has built a neutron bomb on its own. The chief government spokesman dismissed American allegations that Chinese scientists developed the technology with stolen U.S. secrets. A neutron bomb throws off more intense radiation than that of conventional atomic weapon, limiting physical damage while killing large numbers of people. Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush said today he will not accept federal matching funds. He has raised a record $37 million in the first half of 1999, according to papers filed today with the Federal Election Commission. That's roughly double what Vice President Gore has collected. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. Dallas and Boston are the only two large U.S. cities with computers ready for the year 2000. That's what the General Accounting Office reported today to a Senate panel monitoring Y2K compliance. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Northern Ireland peace crisis, the continuing patient rights debate, presidential campaign money, and the art of Diego Rivera.

FOCUS - TROUBLED PEACE

FOCUS - TROUBLED PEACE

JIM LEHRER: The Northern Ireland story-- the refusal of the largest Protestant party to take the next step in sharing power with Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political wing-- and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

SPOKESPERSON: Yes, 71.12 percent. [Applause]

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: On Good Friday last year, most of Northern Ireland's leaders reached an agreement designed to end 30 years of bloody conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the British province.

GEORGE MITCHELL: This agreement is good for the people of Ireland, North and South.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The deal, reached with the help of American mediator George Mitchell, called for power sharing between Protestants -- often called loyalists or unionists for their loyalty to continued union with Britain-- and Catholics -- also known as Nationalists or Republicans for their desire to become one with the Irish Republic to the South. The accord mapped out a new elected Protestant-Catholic Assembly, and a cabinet called the Executive. Election by the assembly of the cabinet, which was scheduled to happen today, would have provided for self-rule for Northern Ireland for the first time since 1972. But implementation of the agreement has foundered on one crucial issue: When and how paramilitary groups on both sides would give up their arms. The accord set a May 2000 deadline for the so-called decommissioning of weapons, but it gave no deadline for beginning the process. The IRA refused to begin decommissioning its arsenal, and Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, said he was unable to force the guerrilla organization to do so, since his Sinn Fein doesn't represent the whole IRA. And without actual IRA disarmament, Protestant Unionist Leader David Trimble said he would not join Sinn Fein in government. In spite of last-minute negotiations this week led by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the peace process definitively fell apart today when Trimble and his 28-strong team announced their decision to stay away from a meeting of the assembly, which was to nominate the self-rule cabinet.

DAVID TRIMBLE, Ulster Unionist Party: And I want specifically to address Sinn Fein at this point. We know that you are a part of this process. We know that your involvement is necessary for a successful outcome. But you must know that it won't work unless you address the issue of peace and weapons.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In response, Gerry Adams called on Trimble to resign his position as first minister of the new assembly.

GERRY ADAMS, Sinn Fein: I think that Mr. Trimble's position is untenable. He should step down, or the British prime minister should stand him down.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In Britain today, the men who brokered last year's peace agreement were honored by Queen Elizabeth. It was meant to be a day of celebration, but instead was the day their hard-won achievement fell apart.

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, it's is a day of irony. Obviously, when this day was set many months ago, no one could have foreseen that it would be a day that the process encountered this difficulty in Northern Ireland. So we're obviously deeply grateful for the honor, but wish it were under more happy circumstances in Northern Ireland.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: British and Irish officials say they will meet next week to plan a summit with Northern Ireland's key parties to review and perhaps salvage the breakdown of the peace process.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And for more on all this we turn to Anne Smith, North American spokesperson for the Ulster Unionist Party, and to Rita O'Hare, representative of Sinn Fein to the U.S.. Anne Smith, fill this picture out. What happened? Is it all about guns? Is that why the Ulster Unionist Party did not go into this cabinet?

ANNE SMITH: That's absolutely right. It's all about guns, but also about a basic democratic principle in that we just cannot have a situation where the representatives of an armed terrorist faction are sitting in a cabinet in a democratic assembly next to people who don't have a have an armed terrorist faction supporting their every move.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Ms. O'Hare, how does Sinn Fein see it

RITA O'HARE: Very struck by the coincidence of George Mitchell being in London and his words there, and it reminds me of a quote of his, and he said this after the agreement was signed and just at the beginning when the evidence started to come out of the blocking and stalling of the agreement from the Unionists, and George Mitchell said, "They would have been forgiven for not signing the agreement, but they will not be forgiven for refusing to implement it." And of course this is not about guns. What this is really about is a refusal to share power, it's a refusal to admit and to recognize that the old days of the Unionist rule without challenge, which went around for 70 years in the North of Ireland, that those days are gone. And that there is a new era opening now where everybody is going to work in partnership and has to work in partnership and recognize the democratic rights of others.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So explain it. If it's not about guns, what's it about? I mean what -- why are they saying it's about guns? Are you saying that the Irish Republican Army would have decommissioned, that that really -- that the refusal is not a real refusal?

RITA O'HARE: Well, let's talk about the real situation. The issue of decommission was negotiated and agreed and signed up to in the agreement, including by Mr. Trimble. He negotiated that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: With the May 2000 deadline?

RITA O'HARE: He negotiated with the other parties, and he negotiated with the two governments. And Sinn Fein were in there, and the issue of decommission was worked out. Remember that all the other provisions of the agreement, including the political institutions, the main one which Mr. Trimble prevented today, they were part of the enabling conditions where decommissioning can happen.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In other words, you're saying the government had to take its seat before the disarming would happen?

RITA O'HARE: Yes, of course because the peace process, remember, was about resolving the causes of conflict. Now, there are a lot of causes of conflict and one of the main ones was the denial of the rights of people who weren't Unionists, who thought otherwise, who thought the best future of Ireland was a united Ireland.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. So, Ms. Smith, was the President right, it's just a question of who goes first he, or whether the government sits first and then the IRA and the other groups disarm, or whether they disarm and then the government sits?

ANNE SMITH: It's not a question just of who goes first. Of course it's not. The basic principle here is to get the guns out of this entire situation. And I have to correct Rita when she says that Northern Ireland has been ruled by Unionists for the last 70 years. It has in fact been direct ruled from London for at least the last 30 years, and Unionists have had no more power than anyone else in Northern Ireland. What's more, they work every day in councils around the entire North with Nationalists, with people from Sinn Fein. They are working on a basis of equality. All the requirements of the civil rights movement, which started this whole thing off many years ago, have been met. People have equality in Northern Ireland, and now we are looking to have equality at the highest level, at the governing level in the assembly. All we need to do that is to get the guns out of the situation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Rita O'Hare, how serious is this? I notice that David Trimble said the peace process was, "parked, not crashed." Do you agree with that? Do you think it's crashed or parked?

RITA O'HARE: It's not going to be crashed because Sinn Fein are one of the parties that are going to ensure that it doesn't crash. I think that one of the aims of David Trimble and the Unionists have has been to get the peace process and the agreement and the implementation of the agreement park, halted, held up, stalled.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So what can Sinn Fein do to make sure that it's not stalled?

RITA O'HARE: Sinn Fein can do what we have consistently done throughout this, and remember, Sinn Fein was one of the architects of the peace process. It was out of the peace process that the agreement came. What Sinn Fein has done, has done is that we have lived up to every commitment that we made in the agreement, and we are absolutely determined to see that agreement implemented and this work. The issue is not the guns. Who was the first person who said that he wanted to take all the gun out of Irish politics, Gerry Adams -- and there are an awful lot of other guns than the IRA's. And I hope Anne is not being disingenuous here, but the IRA is not the only armed group, and to say that Sinn Fein is sitting there with a private army, it's nonsense; that's nonsense. Sinn Fein is a political party. We are entitled to our two seats in government, as we are entitled to our seats in the councils, and I do think it's a very important point, and I agree with Anne. Sinn Fein works with Unionists and councils throughout the country. So what is the problem to sit in government? We won those two seats in government because we got enough votes in an open election, and that was the only criteria to sit in government. Now, if the Unionists seriously want the issue of arms, all arms addressed, surely, then, they would go ahead with an agreement with removing the causes of conflict. That would lead to that, that would actually help that to happen.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Ms. Smith, just on this question of how serious

it is, do you think it's crashed or just parked?

ANNE SMITH: It absolutely is not crashed, and David Trimble was very specific when I spoke with him earlier today on that point. That was the major reason why the Ulster Unionist Party did not turn up at the assembly this morning when the dehaunt procedure to select the executive members was being run because he was aware that, had they turned up, there might have been a motion to expel Sinn Fein, which then very well have led to the entire process crashing -- as it is it is now, it is on hold, it's stalled until we can look more closely at the timetable and the methodology for ensuring that we have some guarantees and some commitment to peace. Someone who has a gun in his back garden but who assures you absolutely that he's not going to use it might as well just get rid of it. That would absolutely prove their commitment to peace. And it would be very difficult for the members of the Ulster Unionist Party and the Nationalist Party in the assembly to sit in a cabinet where two of their fellow cabinet ministers have a private army at their back, which has showed in the past it's willing to act.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Just briefly, there are internal political reasons that David Trimble might have done this, too. His party's quite divided, is it not?

ANNE SMITH: The party is quite divided, but the party is fairly united behind him even as recently as last week, he is still showing 84 percent support from the party, and they just have decided that enough is enough. They've given and given, and they've given way on the matter of prisoner releases. There's a lot of a fully violent prisoners have been released back out in the streets in Northern Ireland because of this agreement. Cross-border bodies, police commission, there are so many things which we have gone a long way towards enacting. The only thing we've asked in return is decommissioning, and it hasn't happened.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay, Ms. O'Hare, is the cease-fire, which has been observed by paramilitary groups on both sides, endangered by what's happened today?

RITA O'HARE: Well, I can't speak for paramilitary groups, but certainly the IRA cease-fire is solid and has held. And now I think when you talk -- when there is all this fuss being made -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But just from everything you know, is there a danger that violence could break out because of this?

RITA O'HARE: Well, the danger is that in a political have a vacuum, and talks about the peace process being parked, the danger in that is that it creates a political vacuum where the people who said that this wouldn't work, the people who said -- who didn't want it to work, the people who said the democratic politics will never work in the North because the Unionists will never let them, they're going to use this to try to destroy it. Now, all the guns by the way, aren't silent. Ten people have died in the last year.

ANNE SMITH: Some of them IRA people.

RITA O'HARE: Killed by the IRA. The ten people I'm talking about, Anne, I'm sorry, are people who are being killed by the loyalists.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, we don't have much time and I do want to get to you just on this question of whether you worry that there could be more violence, more than the 10 deaths.

ANNE SMITH: Yes, I do worry about that, not from my party's point of view because we don't have any guns and we don't have a private army at our back. I do worry about it from the point of view of the IRA and the Loyalist terrorist groups who also have refused to disarm.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. What is the way out of this? There's a meeting to review it. What is that about?

RITA O'HARE: What has to happen is that yes, yes, unfortunately, because David Trimble has prevented the government structure through which the parties of the North could run their own affairs, could implement the agreement, could have a say in control has not be set up, but what has to happen is the two governments must go ahead and implement the rest of that agreement as endorsed -

ANNE SMITH: The two governments cannot do this.

RITA O'HARE: Oh, I'm sorry, yes they can. As endorsed by -

ANNE SMITH: This has -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And then I'll come to you.

RITA O'HARE: As endorsed by 90 percent of the Irish people voted for that agreement, supported it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So what do you think has to happen?

ANNE SMITH: It has to be an inclusive process for it to work in any way at all. We have -- all the members of the parties who are working on this have committed several years of their lives to getting it to this point. We have no intention of it failing at this point, but we need these guarantees. What has to happen now, it has to go into review, it will be reviewed by the two governments, but mostly by the parties who are concerned with setting up this assembly and this cabinet and we will find ways of makingit work, to go forward together for the better future of Northern Ireland.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Well, thank you both very much for being with us.

RITA O'HARE: Thank you very much.

ANNE SMITH: Thank you, Elizabeth.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, more on patient rights, presidential campaign money, and the art of Diego Rivera.

UPDATE - PATIENTS' RIGHTS

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman has our coverage of the patient rights debate in the Senate.

KWAME HOLMAN: Senate Democrats have been keeping score, and by last evening, after nearly three days of debate and votes, not one Democratic amendment to the patients bill of rights had passed.

SEN. BARBARA BOXER, [D] California: It may not be an all-star game, but it's 7-nothing, HMO's over patients. That's where we are. Every single amendment they have won on their positions, and every single amendment has basically been party line.

KWAME HOLMAN: And the shutout continued. Before the Senate adjourned for the night, another Democratic amendment-- this one giving patients in HMO's greater access to specialists-- also was defeated.

SPOKESPERSON: There are 47 yeas and 53 nos. The amendment fails.

KWAME HOLMAN: Democrats have spent the week criticizing HMO's. And in response, Texas Republican Phil Gram came to the Senate floor to remind his Democratic colleagues that five years ago they were the ones who got behind the effort to foster HMO's as part of the Clinton health plan.

SEN. PHIL GRAMM, [R] Texas: They loved HMO's so much, they were so confident in them that they said, "if you refuse to join your local health cooperative HMO government- run health care system, we're going to fine you $5,000 now, that was their position in 1994. Now, today they've taken a poll. They've done a focus group. And they don't love HMO 's anymore.

SPOKESMAN: Who yields time?

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: Yield myself one minute on the bill. I'm a good friend to the Senator from Texas, but I'll tell you, Mr. President. The Senator is as wrong about his explanation about the debate here on the floor of the United States Senate and wrong about President Clinton s bill on healthcare, as he was about President Clinton's proposal about economic recovery in 1993, when he predicted the end of the free market system, inflation going up through the roof, unemployment lines around the capital of the United States. He predicted that deficits were going to grow and it was going to be the end of the American free enterprise system. And he was wrong then, and he's wrong tonight. Mr. President, I yield the last minute to the Senator from South Dakota.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: Mr. President, I don t know how you top that. I was just going simply going to say -

KWAME HOLMAN: Both Democrats and Republicans agree some HMO reform now is needed. The Republican amendments improve patient protections, but not to the extent Democrats want. Republicans would increase emergency room access, enabling patients to go to an emergency room outside their plan's network. They call for requiring coverage of overnight hospitalization for mastectomies; guaranteed coverage of clinical trials for cancer and experimental drugs; and guaranteed, timely access to specialists within a plan's network, including gynecologists. Democrats tried and failed to guarantee access to out-of- network specialists as well, but Republicans also let HMO's retain final say on which treatments are "medically necessary." Democrats sough to give more of that power to doctors. And most of the provisions in the Republican bill would cover only the 48 million people in self-insured and federally regulated health plans. Democrats called or covering all of the more the 160 million people enrolled in health insurance plans.

SENATOR: Is somebody going to cover Ethan? Is somebody going to take care of this issue?

KWAME HOLMAN: Debate on the most contentious issue in the patients bill of rights debate, whether patients should be allowed to sue their HMO, was left for this last day. Democrats were in unanimous agreement.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN: This is the heart of the debate. This is what the patients' bill of rights is all about. The insurance companies hate the idea of being sued in court like the devil hates holy water; they don't want to be held accountable for their actions. They want to be protected so that they can make the wrong decision when it comes to medical care for American families and never, never be held accountable. The amendment being offered on the Republican side is an effort to take away from 123 million Americans the right to hold health insurance companies accountable. That is the bottom line: 123 million Americans will be denied an opportunity to go to court when a health insurance company makes a decision, which costs them the health or their life.

SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI: Senator Durbin now brings to the floor of the Senate one last chance for the Senate to do something fair and decent for the American people in this plan to protect people in health maintenance organizations, to give them the right afforded every other American with ever other industry, to bring their grievance to a court of law. It is ultimately the choice between a patient's bill of rights or an insurance protection. And if we fail, make no mistake about it, this debate and this vote will be noted for the fact that the Senate balanced the interests of 120 million Americans against several dozen insurance companies and made the wrong choice.

KWAME HOLMAN: An overwhelming number of Republicans saw the issue entirely differently.

SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY: This is in fact a Democratic leadership war on health insurance coverage. They do not care if they drive up the cost of care, employers eliminate their coverage, their employees go naked with coverage because they stand by willing and able to have the taxpayers and the federal government provide that insurance. And that sort of environment will hasten their day when they want the federal government and the federal bureaucracy to take over healthcare coverage in America.

KWAME HOLMAN: Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum said he opposed the Democratic plan because it would allow employers to be sued as well.

SEN. RICK SANTORUM: Once these employers drop heir insurance as a result of this bill, who would be the first person to run to the Senate floor and say, these nasty employers, look at them they're dropping their insured. We need the government to take over the health care system. Yes, the Senator from Massachusetts would be the first person here on the Senate floor calling for a government health care system.

KWAME HOLMAN: New Hampshire's Judd Gregg outlined the Republican alternative to the right to sue.

SEN. JUDD GREGG: Under our bill, a patient, rather than having to go to court to get their concerns addressed, gets to go to have their concerns addressed by first a doctor in the specialty dealing with the type of problem that the patient has within the clinic or the group that the person is being served, and that doctor is dependent, and that doctor makes a decision, did that patient have right care or did thatpatient have wrong care or should that patient get more care? And if the patient isn't comfortable with that decision, then the patient can go outside the clinic, outside the insurance group and have another doctor who is appointed after having been pre-qualified by a certified either state or federal agency, have another doctor review that patient's care. And if that doctor decides that that patient needs some other type of care, something that the clinic or the insurance group did not decide the patient should have, then that is binding, binding on the insurance group.

KWAME HOLMAN: As expected, the Democrats' right-to-sue proposal was defeated, and the Republicans' plan for internal review was substituted in its place. At one point during the day, Senators Chafee and Specter, two Republicans who sided with Democrats on most votes during the week, appeared with a group of Democratic moderates; they proclaimed that only a new bipartisan bill had a chance of becoming law.

SEN. JOHN CHAFEE: It seems to us that the track we're now on is as follows: That a Republican bill will pass, the President will veto it, the veto will be sustained and the American people won't be one bit better off than they were before we started this whole exercise. And to us, that seems unfortunate.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: The bill, which we are pushing today, is a centrist bill which reaches middle ground on an accommodation of many of the key issues.

KWAME HOLMAN: However, the small coalition admitted their proposal was likely to fall short of the 51 votes needed for passage. And by late this afternoon, neither Republican nor Democratic leaders had agreed to clear the way to bring the bipartisan bill to the floor. And as the Republicans' version of the patients bill of rights moved toward a final vote this evening, Democrats continued to update the scoreboard.

FOCUS - FOLLOW THE MONEY

JIM LEHRER: Now, the campaign money story. Presidential candidates filed their midyear fund-raising reports today with the Federal Election Commission. We get the numbers, and some perspective on the impact money is having so far on the campaign, from three political reporters: Susan Glasser of the "Washington Post," Ron Brownstein of the "Los Angeles Times," and Elizabeth Arnold of National Public Radio.

Susan, let's first start with the numbers -- today's numbers. George W. Bush's numbers were the biggest. What were they?

SUSAN GLASSER, Washington Post: Well, as already noted a couple of weeks ago, Governor Bush has already raised more than any presidential primary candidate ever. The actual total turns out to be about $37 million raised so far, and he reported an equally surprising sum, which was $30 million in the bank, which means that in raising all that money, he actually only spent 20 percent of it, which is an incredibly lean and mean operation.

JIM LEHRER: And who's second? Is there a second and how far back is he? Or she?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, Vice President Gore is second. The Democrats are actually running, though, much closer than expected. Vice President Gore and Democrat Bill Bradley. Basically, there's only about $2 million separating them in a key area of the fund-raising, which is how much money they actually have left to spend next year on the primaries.

JIM LEHRER: And what are the figures? The figure's what, around 19 for Vice President Gore and around 11 for Bill Bradley?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, it's actually 17.5 million for Vice President Gore in terms of what he raised for his primary campaign. He has a separate fund-raising account that can't be used to fund his actual election expenses, and it was a little bit over $11 million for Bradley. But the gap is much narrower, as I said, in terms of what they actually have in the bank.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Now, back to the republicans, who's next after George W. Bush?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, a very, very distant second-- you have to remember that Governor Bush actually raised more money than all of his rivals combined-- but a distant second is Senator John McCain, and he's got about a little bit more than $6 million for the year, including a transfer from his Senate campaign. And he also is second in terms of cash on hand, followed by Elizabeth Dole. And also, then, there's a separate category for Steve Forbes, who's already spent more than $6 million of his own money we learned today, financing this campaign.

JIM LEHRER: And he's raised some, too, in addition to that?

SUSAN GLASSER: Exactly. His total for the year is about $9.5 million, more than $6 million of which comes from his own pocket, so -

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Now, Ron, the development that came out of -- also came out of this today was that George W. Bush said, "Okay, I'm not going to take any matching funds." What's your reading of that have?

RON BROWNSTEIN, Los Angeles Times: Well, you know, he's in a position where he clearly can choose. He doesn't need the matching funds, so he has no real incentive to bind himself both by the spending limits, state by state, which will affect him in the primary and which he now will - you know -- be free from.

JIM LEHRER: Because if he had taken the matching funds -

RON BROWNSTEIN: If he had taken the matching funds, he would have had to abide by the Federal Election Commission restrictions and how much you can spend in each individual state. But even more importantly, Jim, he's trying to avoid the problem that Bob Dole ran into last time, which is spending up to the primary limit to win the nomination and then having this long period until the convention where you could not spend money, where only the party could spend on your behalf. Now he has the prospect of being able to put on - if he is the nominee - put on advertising all the way through the spring and summer while Al Gore might be in a position closer to Bob Dole, if he survives, where he's had to spend really up the primary limit just to get the nomination and thus legally cannot spend more until he is officially the nominee at the end of August. So that could be a competitive disadvantage for the Democrats if it plays out that way.

JIM LEHRER: And Elizabeth, I noticed that in announcing this today, George W. Bush said that one of the reasons he was going to do this is so he would have enough funds to fight off any primary advertising campaign. He's talking about Steve Forbes, right?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD, National Public Radio: He is talking about Steve Forbes, Steve Forbes incidentally out there criticizing him for doing this and for basically being an insider and being beholden to all these special interests who he's raised this from money from. Well, Steve Forbes obviously has the luxury of that, but one of the reasons Governor Bush is doing that is because he knows he's up against Steve Forbes who has an unlimited amount of money. He can just keep giving himself, giving his campaign his own money and he'd be out there attacking Governor Bush, who would be subject to these spending limits, as Ron explained.

RON BROWNSTEIN: And the presser, if I could just jump in, the presser is that Forbes spent well beyond the spending limit in New Hampshire last time really pulverized Bob Dole with negative advertising there, and I think that's very much what Bush has in mind, that precedent, when he looks at avoiding being caught in that situation or being outspent in the critical early states.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Elizabeth, has there ever been a primary campaign where all the reporting was about money, rather than votes at this stage?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: That's really interesting. I mean it's as though the donors are sort of determining the shape of the race this early on, and who gets out of the gate first. They're giving to Bush the more they give to Bush, the more we right write about Bush and how formidable he is and the more people pile on and give to Bush. Senator Bradley's another great example. Senator Bradley is looking more credible now, which makes -

JIM LEHRER: But because of the money?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Because of the money. And that makes Vice President Al Gore not look as formidable because Bradley is becoming a challenger.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Susan, you've looked at - I know all three of you have, but where's this money coming from? This is a tremendous amount of money. You add up 37 million here and -- I mean there's a lot of money being contributed to an awful lot of candidates. Who's doing it?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, it's really interesting. I think there's a lot of puzzling around right now about whether Governor Bush has actually managed to expand the size of the Republican donor base in this country -- a lot of speculation about the flush economy, people writing bigger checks than they ever have before, up to the $1,000 limit, instead of say $250 a few years ago. Also, Governor Bush comes from an incredibly wealthy state with a huge base of contributors and nearly a third of his money overall has come from Texas, an overwhelming $11 million. So, I think it's important to look at that when you think about the totals.

JIM LEHRER: You made a good point, though, that we always have to make is that this can only -- all this money is going collected $1,000 at a time, I mean, or less. Nobody can contribute more than $1,000, no individual can, to a candidate.

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, that makes it a little bit ironic when you have Steve Forbes criticizing the Bush campaign for being bought and paid for by special interests, when of course there's no single contributor in this campaign bigger than $1,000. Where you really get that accusation maybe sticking a little bit more is what the Bush campaign has done with its Pioneers Program, which is a group of over 200 wealthy individuals who signed up to collect $100,000 or more. The campaign has refused to release the list of who these people are, but I think that's where you start to look at, you know, the incredible sort of amounts of influence. I mean well over $10 million has come from those solicitors.

JIM LEHRER: But they also -- they have to collect it $1,000 at a time, do they not?

SUSAN GLASSER: Exactly. Exactly.

JIM LEHRER: Ron, what do you -- how would you answer the question where this money's coming from?

RON BROWNSTEIN: Well, I mean, I think first of all empirically it's looks as though the pool is getting bigger. If you look at the comparable period in the last cycle, the first half of 1995, the Republican candidates as a group raised about $50 million, and it looks like it's going to be bigger than that this time, maybe $60 million. Likely Democrats are going to be bigger as well. So there are people coming in. I was at a Bush fund-raiser the other day - I guess yesterday in Northern Virginian -- high-tech economy type folks and look, there are a lot of people out there with money. Bush is raising -- Susan made the point about one-third in Texas. That is a lot, but I mean he is bringing in million dollar-plus in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. He's raised more money in California than I believe any Republican has raised countrywide, nationwide in the entire year. There's a real breadth here. There are a lot of people doing well in this economy. And there's just a lot more money out there I think for politics.

JIM LEHRER: Elizabeth, is it possible to answer -- I'm going to ask you the impossible question.

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Oh, thank you very much Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. You're certainly welcome. Is Bush raising the money because he's doing so well, or is the money causing him to do so well?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You go to these fund-raisers, as Ron, you've had this experience and you say to people, "What is it you like about the governor?" And they say, "Well I really don't know that much about him. He's charming. I know a little bit about his father I liked his father and I'm going to write a check." And that's it. I mean -- it's just -- its an incredible - he's just as baffled by it as others.

RON BROWNSTEIN: To some extent the parties have really brought the situation on themselves. If you go back as recently as 1984, Gary Hart had raised $1.3 million by New Hampshire, but in that system -

JIM LEHRER: New Hampshire, now, New Hampshire is -

RON BROWNSTEIN: Is February of the election year.

JIM LEHRER: Right. Okay.

RON BROWNSTEIN: But he was able to translate success into New Hampshire into fund-raising because the primary calendar was spread out over a period of months. California didn't come till June. Money could follow success. Now the calendar is so compressed that the candidates basically believe they have to raise all of their money in the year before the election because there's really no time to raise money based on initial success, and that allows donors to function in effect as a primary because they are, in effect, weeding out candidates in the way that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire used to be able to do because there's no time really to successfully translate early success into a lot of money.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Susan, speaking of weeding out candidates, go on down the list for us with some of the other Republicans. When you get beyond Forbes, how about McCain and Elizabeth Dole and Lamar Alexander? I mean are they having serious money problems, or how are they doing?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, that's a really good question today. I'm just looking over the sheet here. And it turns out that three of the candidates, Dan Quayle, Gary Bauer and Lamar Alexander, are actually reporting today basically negative net worths -- campaigns that are in the red and in which they have more debts than they do have cash on hand. And you know, while they can continue on for a little while in that sort of a situation, basically it's putting them on a political life support system, and that's an area where clearly money does immediately matter in the campaign. McCain, Elizabeth Dole, they're in a little bit different situation. They have enough money to keep going. And to be competitive in traditional terms, the problem simply is that Bush is raising such an untraditional amount of money, that, you know, it's not clear to anyone how they can possibly be competitive with him as the front-runner.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Now, Elizabeth, help us explain how this money is actually spent. I mean is it having the money and the power to raise it and having it in the bank, is that what we're working at now, is that what's causing this election -- that is having the impact on the election, or is it the actual expenditure of the money?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: At this point, it's more a sign of strength - and short of anything else, that's what we have to go on, to see how these candidates are really doing.

I mean, if you look at Governor Bush, yesterday in two events here, he raised some $900,000. John Kasich, who just pulled out of the race, he wasn't able to raise $600,000 in a couple of months. I mean, basically the governor's just sucking all the air out of the race. And to add on something that Susan just said, what's telling about this is what's coming down the road. This Pioneers Program that Governor Bush put together, these people went out and they raised or pledged to raise $100,000 in $1,000 amounts. The apparatus is now in place for those people to go out to those same donors and raise $1 million in soft money. Fred Wertheimer -

JIM LEHRER: Explain soft money for those -

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: Soft money, that basically you can give unlimited amounts and it's very unaccountable to party-building purposes.

JIM LEHRER: You give it to the party or something, you don't give it to individual candidates.

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: As Fred Wertheimer -- formally of Common Cause -- said the other day, "The brakes are off." I mean, this is really telling about what's coming ahead.

RON BROWNSTEIN: You know, Jim, in looking at what's coming, if you're the other candidate, you have to face the reality that the history has been that in the year before the election, you raise money more in the first half than in the second half. I mean, it makes sense. You go for your best targets, the lowest hanging fruit. So if you're John McCain or Elizabeth Dole, you have a hard time matching even what you did in the first half. In the second half that means there can be no Republican with more than about $10 million, which is not really very much - if you're looking at Bush - an enormous total -- the advantage it gives him is the ability to have the capacity to put on ads and build an organization beyond Iowa and New Hampshire, which no one else is going to have.

JIM LEHRER: You were going to say something, Susan?

SUSAN GLASSER: Yes. I just wanted to chime in here that, you know, I think the Democratic side of equation has become significantly more interesting, as well. I mean clearly Bush is so far ahead of his rivals, it's clear that no one essentially is financially competitive, except for Forbes. But I think if you look at how much money Al Gore is spending relative to what he's raising, that you know, it becomes much more of a significant contest. You're talking about practically parity between Bill Bradley, who just a few months ago was dismissed as an outsider with no chance of unseating the Vice President in a contest next year.

JIM LEHRER: You mentioned that again, but go through that again, the difference in how -- in what they're each bringing in and what they're each spending. I'm talking about Gore and Bradley.

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, exactly. You know, there is a fair amount of difference still in their overall fund-raising. The Vice President $17.5 million to $11 million for Bradley, but Bradley is running a much leaner meaner campaign, storing up his resources for the election next year -- he's still got $7.5 million in the bank, compared with $9 million for the Vice President. Considering the Vice President's much higher day-to-day, month-to-month expenses, he has a much bigger staff, many more campaign offices, you're talking about putting them all but even essentially at this point in terms of what they can actually spend on ads and in the election process.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, Elizabeth, just in a general way, is there something different about this particular election year that somebody has decided that this is going to require just a lot more money than it ever has before, or is it just a natural progression of politics?

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: I think it's two things: I think the economy is booming, I think people who normally write $100 or $500 checks are not having as much trouble thinking about writing a $1,000 check, and I also think it really is a result of this compressed primary. There just is no time, and the candidates know this and they saw it happen to Senator Bob Dole in 1996 where he was basically cut off at the knees waiting for an infusion of cash right before the convention. And they don't want to see that happen to themselves, and so they're out there raising as aggressively as possible because say you win in New Hampshire, you don't have time to wait for the checks to come in for the next primary.

RON BROWNSTEIN: And the other point quickly on the Republican side that the money is only one manifestation of a broader movement. You're seeing the entire infrastructure of the party, elected officials, party officials, Governors, Senators, state legislators basically doing the same things the donors are doing - overwhelmingly aligning with Bush, saying this is the guy and trying to in effect preempt this process in the year before -- and that will become a major theme for his opponents, trying to - you know -- grab whatever strand they can -- whether Steve Forbes or Lamar Alexander saying, look to the voters, that the infrastructure of the party, the establisher of the party is trying to make this choice for you. You should rebel against it. That may be the only argument they have in this environment. I'm not clear it's going to works, but you are going to hear a lot of it in the months ahead.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Ron, Susan, Elizabeth, thank you all three very much.

FOCUS - REVOLUTIONARY ARTIST

JIM LEHRER: Living and painting large: Jeffrey Kaye KCET-Los Angeles has the story of artist Diego Rivera.

JEFFREY KAYE: Vivid murals on walls throughout Los Angeles pay tribute to ordinary people of diverse cultures. The displays are a legacy of Mexican muralists, particularly of Diego Rivera, a pioneer of mural art. Rivera's work is the subject of a major retrospective presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Curator Lynn Zelevansky says the exhibit, "Art and Revolution," reflects Rivera's role as one of the century's great revolutionary artists, both politically and artistically.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: Rivera thought that art could change the world; I mean, I think that that's the key-- muralism especially, but his other art as well. And so when he did this work, he did it to communicate real values. They were teaching tools.

JEFFREY KAYE: Zelevansky says Rivera used his art to convey the dignity of everyday life. As a result, many now see Mexico through Rivera's eyes, according to Gregorio Luke, director of the Museum of Latin American Art.

GREGORIO LUKE: When people think of Mexico, when people close their eyes and think of Mexico, most of the time, you imagine a world similar to that described by Diego Rivera in his paintings.

JEFFREY KAYE: So you're saying his art has affected the way we think of Mexico.

GREGORIO LUKE: Yes, of the way Mexicans think of Mexico, and the way people outside perceive Mexico.

JEFFREY KAYE: Born in 1886 in Guanajato in Central Mexico, Rivera is world famous for his murals. But he also produced paintings reflecting the artistic and political storms that shaped the first half of this century. Rivera's personality was as vibrant as his art. He was a devout Marxist, but he courted both revolutionaries and capitalists. He led a turbulent personal life, with multiple marriages and feuds with fellow artists and communists.

JEFFREY KAYE: He was a larger-than-life character, wasn't he?

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: Yes, he was in many ways. He was a huge man, a physically huge man, and he was a great storyteller, a great self-mythologizer, just I think a tremendously charismatic kind of figure.

JEFFREY KAYE: Fancying himself as a revolutionary, Rivera often claimed that he had fought with Emiliano Zapata, a leader of the Mexican revolution. That boast was false. But as an artist in his 20's living in Europe, his work was revolutionary, reflecting associations with painters who were in the forefront of the modern art movement-- among them, Cezanne, Modigliani, and Picasso.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: He's a young artist and he's trying on all of the different avant-garde styles of the day for size to see what fits him and what works for him. So you see him here trying impressionism on. You see him here working with a Serat-like pointillism.

JEFFREY KAYE: Rivera's paintings also emulated the elongated figures of El Greco, and above all, the cubism of Pablo Picasso.

GREGORIO LUKE: Diego Rivera said that he had never believed in god, but that he had always believed in Picasso.

JEFFREY KAYE: But Rivera's cubist paintings reflected his Mexican perspective. His "Zapatista Landscape" of 1915 alluded to the ongoing Mexican Revolution, which he had sat out in Paris.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: There's no question that while he was there, he was thinking of Mexico, because what you have in this picture is you have the rifle, you have the serape, you have the belt, and it's all situated in front of a view of the valley of Mexico.

JEFFREY KAYE: The Russian Revolution of 1917 was also on Rivera's mind. His first wife, Russian Artist Angelina Bellof, introduced him to Communists, and Rivera, a child of middle class parents, began what turned out to be a lifelong relationship with the Communist Movement. After returning to Mexico in 1921, Rivera abandoned cubism, calling it elitist. He brought his revolutionary spirit to muralism, painting on public buildings as part of the new government's program to bring art to the masses. His subjects reflected his growing appreciation for Mexico's history and indigenous cultures.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: This the moment when Rivera becomes one of the great innovators of 20th century art, because what he does is he takes everything that he's learned in Europe from European modernism, and he melds it with the art of ancient Mexico, Mayan and Aztec art, to come up with a new form that will allow him to express social and political ideas on a broad scale.

GREGORIO LUKE: Everything strikes him with great strength -- the colors of Mexico, the vibrancy of the markets, the light of Mexico. Everywhere, he sees a potential masterpiece.

JEFFREY KAYE: In both his murals and his easel paintings, Rivera made ordinary people, peasants and laborers, the heroes of his work.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: When Rivera goes back to Mexico, one of his major thrusts is going to be this sort of diary of Mexican daily life told from the view of the lower classes, and he has a vision in his art of a kind of utopia that is a multiracial, multicultural utopia, and these figures are the embodiment of that vision.

JEFFREY KAYE: Rivera believed that art had a political mission, to improve the lives of people. Although he advocated the demise of capitalism, Rivera relied on rich patrons for commissions, often painting portraits of wealthy women.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: And he loved painting them, and often painting with them led to other kinds of relationships with them, and that was the way he lived.

JEFFREY KAYE: As his fame grew, so did the number of female admirers.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: He was extremely attractive to women, and -

JEFFREY KAYE: You're puzzled.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: Astoundingly. Yes, I'm puzzled by why this 300-pound, famously dirty man who didn't care to bathe was so attractive to so many gorgeous, sought-after, intelligent, delightful women.

JEFFREY KAYE: Rivera's infidelities strained his five marriages, including his relationship with artist and fellow Communist Frieda Kahlo, whom he married twice. His work for wealthy patrons also strained his relationship with the Communist Party, but Luke says Rivera didn't compromise his art.

GREGORIO LUKE: Diego would always affirm that it didn't matter who sponsored the mural as long as he mural itself was ideologically correct, or at least truthful to his convictions.

JEFFREY KAYE: Actually his first U.S. murals seemed apolitical. One painted for the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco showed his fascination with American industry. A Detroit commission from car maker Edsel Ford honored auto workers. And in 1932, when the Rockefeller family hired Rivera to paint a mural, they expected a work as innocuous as the sketch he gave them.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: What you get is little hints. If this is socialism and this is capitalism, then the children here are playing tug of war and the children here are playing ring around the rosie. I mean, you get little sort of references like that, but nothing very blatant that you finally get in the Fresco.

JEFFREY KAYE: In the mural, painted for New York City's Rockefeller Center, Rivera included a portrait of Vladimir Lenin, a leader of the Soviet Revolution, surrounded by admiring workers. Nelson Rockefeller demanded that Rivera remove the offending figure, then had the Fresco destroyed after Rivera refused. The controversy over Rivera's decision virtually ended his U.S. mural career.

GREGORIA LUKE: We don t know exactly what motivated him to do so; probably the desire to affirm his independence, the desire to maintain that even though these times he had been expelled from the Communist Party, that he remained true to his ideals, that he was not selling out to the millionaire, even if he was painting in his building and with his money. Probably if this incident had not occurred, Diego Rivera's presence in the U.S. would be much more abundant.

JEFFREY KAYE: Angry, Rivera returned home and created an almost identical mural at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. On one side, John D. & Rockefeller, Jr., martini in hand, is meant to embody the decadence of capitalism. On the o her is Lenin and revolutionary Leon Trotsky, meant to represent the strength of socialism. In 1937, Rivera and Kahlo hosted Trotsky, who had been expelled from the Soviet Union. Trotsky was later assassinated in Mexico. Rivera himself died of cancer in 1957. But the politically inspired message of his art has left an indelible impression, according to Zelevansky.

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: He was giving to the people of Mexico a means, a way, a vision of becoming great.

JEFFREY KAYE: And seeing themselves as great?

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: And seeing themselves as great, that's right.

JEFFREY KAYE: And noble?

LYNN ZELEVANSKY: And noble, absolutely.

JEFFREY KAYE: And that legacy thrives in Southern California's public art. At Stevenson Elementary School in Long Beach, students who recently completed a mural documenting their lives and aspirations paid homage to Rivera.

JEFFREY KAYE: What does he have to say about, or have to do with what you're doing?

STUDENT: Well, because he did a mural just like us, and we want to make a mural like Diego Rivera -

JEFFREY KAYE: You do?

STUDENT: -- because he's a great artist.

JEFFREY KAYE: The Rivera exhibit is on display in Los Angeles through August 16th, before traveling to Houston, then Mexico City.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday: The Northern Ireland peace plan had a setback when the major Protestant Party refused to join the new power-sharing government. And the Senate moved toward a final vote on patient rights. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening, with Paul Gigot and Tom Oliphant, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.